Left: Christopher Eccleston and Eddie lzzard in Revengers Tragedy; below, lzzard on set with Alex Cox
~ No surrender
ALEX COX is the most uncompromising filmmaker in the UK. As Revengers Tragedy receives its world premiere, he talks about Liverpool, Jacobean history, and a life spent fighting mediocrity. Words: Paul Dale
t's from the passenger seat I first see it. a filthy white sheet
Sellotaped to the wall of a pub on the Gainsborough Road in
south Liverpool. at once wealthy suburban area that has slowly. irretrievably slipped into decline. There‘s writing on the sheet that reads: ‘ONIZ YEAR AGO MY MENTALIX ILL SON WAS SHOT DEAD ON THIS SPOT BY THE POLICE. ENGLAND 2(X)2‘."."." It takes a moment to remember the news story ofAndrew Tiernan. the young man with a Samurai sword fixation who. in a moment of unmedicated madness. took part of his collection to the street and was greeted by a shot to the head rather than the leg from the armed response unit.
Two days earlier I had interviewed the film director Alex Cox. but now I can feel the joy and positivity he had instilled in me about the future of this singular. beautiful city slowly dissipating.
Cox. at a youthful 48. speaks fast. packing every sentence with erudition and odd punctuation. But. even for a man of his esoteric tastes. his new film. a version of Thomas Middleton‘s very bloody Jacobean play Revengerx Trugaly (here adapted and updated to a
near-future setting by Frank Cottrell
‘I thOUght: Boyce). seems a strange choice.
“ 3 ‘I’ve been obsessed with this wovv] here 5 thing since my early 2()s.‘ says Cox. somethlng ‘I just read it and thought it was a someone who great piece. When I was a lad they . made me read Shakespeare. but I IS a was kind of bored of Shakespeare. monarchist can He was a great poet. but a bit of a re|ate to”, reactionary I —‘ Shakespeare was a propagan 1st for the Tudors. I had to study the Tudors for history and I hated them; they were the founders of the modern British police state. Then I read The Revengcr's 'Ii'ugwly just by chance. and it was sensational. Here‘s a play where the hero is like Hamlet. in that he has a revenge quest. but instead of being consumed by self doubt and lots of tedious moralising about the divine rights of kings. hejust gets on with it. He gets rid of the other guy and then he gets rid of the kids as well. I thought: “Wow. here's something that someone who is not a monarchist can relate to.”
The film has been made entirely and independently in Liverpool (where Cox‘s film production company. Extemiinating Angel. is based in an old Mission house on the edge of Toxteth). ‘It‘s entirely shot in Liverpool. The crew was 70% based in the L8 and LI
38 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 15—22 Aug) 7002?